1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates the field of nano-scale technology and in particular to a method of making a molecular filter and the resulting filter so made.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The sorting and filtration of molecules is becoming an increasingly important technology. In the past, anodized aluminum filters have been fabricated for the filtration of bacterial and viruses from a solution. Such filters, with minimum hole sizes of about 10 nm, can also be defined lithographically by electron beam lithography and etching. However, it is much more challenging to filter structures with sizes even smaller than 10 nm, since the common self-assembly methods produce a large variations of hole sizes, and conventional lithographic methods are not capable of reaching resolutions of 1-5 nm.
What is needed is a method which will allow the fabrication of filters which can separate objects within this size range.